Born in 2001, Hadra has been founded by a small group of electronic music lovers and more precisely of psychedelic trance ! Psytrance is a musical culture which roots in the early 90s in Goa (India) and which was in this way first called « Trance-Goa ». This Culture is deeply rooted into the late 70s hippies movement and is in this way deeply based on values such as respect, share, travel and experience.
The name « Hadra » comes from the arabic language and represents the collective trance state as it is practised by the Moroccan religious friaries and particularly by the "Issawas" and the "gnawies" during their ceremonies.
Hadra has first began to organize psytrance parties which gathered some 300 or 400 people near Grenoble (French Alps). These parties have always been organized according to the French legislation and with the utmost care to ensure security, to give access to the most people to this still unrecognised culture and to encourage sharing and gathering between the audience and the local and international invited artists.
From the beginning, Hadra has always wanted to attached a significant importance to the quality of the artistic programming bringing together international famous artists and local artists : Djs and producers, spearheads of the different styles of pystrance, VJs (Videojockeys), LJs (Lightjockeys) and set designers coming from all over the world to present a large view of the international psytrance culture styles.
Over the years, the Hadra association has become more and more professional and has developed its activities to gain the confidence and the reconnaissance of the authorities. Moreover, Hadra's events have always been organized with the great care of the on-going legislation, the environment, the populations and the security of the festival-goers to bring French people into focus that large-scale electronic music events are not generally related with troubles. Indeed, despite the fact that Hadra's Team has been working for 8 years to develop Electro music and free it from the negative image which sticks it to the hide from the beginning, people still lump together Hadra's events and free-parties or tecknivals and in this way relay the bad impression usually promoted by the media.
Hadra has in this way developed different activities :
- The training section : TRANCEMISSION (training of teenagers and adults to the DJing (sound mixing), the VJing (video mixing), the Decoration (fluo painting, Lycra, etc.) and Computer-aided music compositing,
- Label and artists managing : HADRA RECORDS, created in 2004 (worldwide promotion of local and international artists,
- Events organisation : around ten medium-scale events per year,
- The HADRA TRANCE FESTIVAL which brough together nearly 4000 people in 2008 in Pontcharra, Isère (6.5 % of them came from Europe and 2.9 % from the rest of the world) and which gathered together during 3 days musicians, set designers and video directors coming from all over the world to present a large view of the international psytrance culture styles.
Hadra has in this way gathered a larger and larger loyal audience which supports the association in its development.
The Hadra association is a non-profit cultural organization supported by about 150 volunteers and only 2 employees and which works mainly with its capital stock (tickets sales, CDs sales, members contribution) and which is about 90% self-financed. Hadra is supported by the authorities: the City of Grenoble and the council of Isere department have, in this way, signed an agreement with Hadra, the Regional council of Rhône-Alpes has supported the association mainly in helping financially the festival and finally the DDJS (Direction of Youth and Sports) certified the association as an organization working towards developing Youth and Popular Education.
The HADRA RECORDS LABEL :
Founded in 2004, the Hadra Records label aims at presenting the large range of the different psytrance styles through various albums and compilations such as :
- the progressive trance (simple and groovy bass line making the ambiances varying progressively)
- the dark-psytrance (fast rhythm going with dark and short sounds. This style of trance is played during the deep night),
- the full-on psytrance (very fast rhythm going with very psychedelic and colourful sounds and melodies),
- the ambient (down-tempo atmospheric style, usually melting electro and world music sounds. This style of trance is mainly played at the "chill-out" area).
In the same time, Hadra Records aims at promoting the local psytrance artists on a worldwide scale and has become an international network between every actors of this thriving culture with international artists such as EVP, A-TEAM, AEROSPACE, KULARIS, OVNIMOON, PSYMMETRIX or ASTRAL PROJECTION.
Hadra Records is distributed all over the world and the label already has on its name 3 albums and 12 compilations.
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